Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The

by White, Mark

  Humility can have strategic benefit as well, especially when it comes to fooling your enemies. When Crossfire captures Hawkeye, planning to kill him and use his dead body to draw out the rest of Earth’s heroes, he tells Clint he chose him because he is “the weakest, most vulnerable known costumed crime fighter in town.”27 But as you can easily guess, Crossfire grossly underestimates our favorite archer, who escapes his trap by outsmarting the villain, who then tries to kill Clint with his own bow and arrow but ironically discovers he is not strong enough to pull the string. As Lao Tzu wrote, “No calamity is greater than underestimating opponents,” which also implies an advantage to appearing weak to your enemies, as Clint learns (but, it seems, has not taken to heart).28

  The Life and Death of a Hero

  Like so many heroes in the Marvel Universe, Hawkeye has had firsthand experience with death, and lived (again) to tell about it—both times. When a mentally unstable Scarlet Witch attacks Avengers Mansion with a Kree armada that she fabricates with her reality-altering powers, Clint is shot in the back by a number of Kree soldiers. Refusing to die that way, he grabs a nearby Kree, activates his jetpack, and flies into the Kree warship, destroying it and killing himself.29 We could choose to see this simply as one final grandstanding move from the former carnival showman, but instead we will use it to explore two final themes in Taoism, heroism and death, both of which involve (in the spirit of wei wu wei) sacrifice “without sacrifice.”

  As Lao Tzu wrote, “Sages put themselves last, and they were first; they excluded themselves, and they survived.”30 This is true of heroes as well: by putting their own needs and safety aside to protect others, they ensure their own survival, either literally (continuing as heroes if they live) or metaphorically (as legacies after their death). Hawkeye makes the ultimate sacrifice when he flies into the Kree warship, which ensures that he will be remembered as a hero for years to come. And after Kate Bishop, one of the Young Avengers and a fine archer, stands up to Captain America like only Clint has before her, he bestows on her the name Hawkeye (as well as his equipment).31 Hawkeye is now a legacy, a mantle to be passed on to future heroes.32

  Lao Tzu asked, “If people usually don’t fear death, how can death be used to scare them?”33 Through his heroism, Clint Barton has proven that he does not fear death—and even if he did, he doesn’t let that fear prevent him from being a hero. Lao Tzu also wrote (in one of his more straightforward moments), “Sages always consider it good to save people,” and in this sense, even Hawkeye is a sage. It isn’t just about superheroics and Avenging for Clint, though, at least later in his career. When he recently took a road trip to Myrtle Beach, he stopped to help stranded motorists along the way (granted, female stranded motorists). He ended up saving a stripper from a lout in a bar, an act that embroiled him in a scheme involving war crimes in Laos and a stolen religious relic—and he didn’t put on his costume until the end of the six-issue story line.34

  Soon after Hawkeye’s death, the Scarlet Witch (under the sway of her brother Quicksilver) uses her mutant powers to re-form the entire world into one dominated by mutants under the rule of her father, Magneto. She also resurrects Hawkeye, to whom she had long been close, but after he threatens her life she “disassembles” him again. He is believed dead, but a mysterious copy of his newspaper obituary pinned to a wall with an arrow leads us (and the Avengers) to suspect otherwise.35 After seeking out (and, we might say, “reconciling with”) the Scarlet Witch, who apparently has no memory of the destruction she caused, Clint adopts the identity of Ronin until returning to the classic Hawkeye colors after the Siege of Asgard ends and the “Heroic Age” begins.36

  The unique nature of Hawkeye’s experiences during this second period recalls one of Chuang Tzu’s most famous tales:

  Once Chuang Chou dreamed he was a butterfly. He was happy as a butterfly, enjoying himself and going where he wanted. He did not know he was Chou. Suddenly he awoke, whereupon he was startled to find he was Chou. He didn’t know whether Chou had dreamed he was a butterfly, or if a butterfly were dreaming it was Chou.37

  Earlier in the same chapter of his works, Chuang Tzu connects this idea with death: “How do I know the dead do not regret having longed for life at first?”38 He’s making two points here: first, that there is no way to compare two such different states of being to determine which one is more “real,” as in the butterfly or Chou. The Scarlet Witch completely altered reality to fit Quicksilver’s conception of the perfect world: who’s to say which was more real, that reality or the original one? Second, there is also no way to say which one you would prefer: is it better to be the butterfly or Chou, and is it better to be alive or dead? To the Taoist, life and death are both parts of nature. Neither is to be celebrated more than the other, but both are to be welcomed as part of the tao (“the Way”). Clint has been both, and in two different realities—if only we could ask him which he preferred!

  The Way of the Archer

  After Clint took up the Hawkeye identity most recently, he thought to himself, “Been a while, but here, now, feeling the pull of the string, the fletching of the arrow between my fingers, the weight of the quiver on my back . . . it’s like coming home.”39 He has returned to his true path, the one that expresses wei wu wei in that it is the most natural and effortless one for him. It is only natural, then, to end this chapter with a final quote from Lao Tzu: “The Way of Heaven is like drawing a bow; the high is lowered, the low is raised; excess is reduced, need is fulfilled.”40 The Way moderates all things and keeps them in balance, and after all his experiences with love, loss, and struggle, Clint Barton may be on his way to realizing the Way as well.

  NOTES

  1. Tales of Suspense #57, 60, and 64 (1964–1965), reprinted in Essential Iron Man Vol. 1 (2002), and Avengers, vol. 1, #16 (May 1965), reprinted in Essential Avengers Vol. 1 (1998). For a slightly updated version of his introduction to the Avengers, see Hawkeye: Blindspot #2 (May 2011), reprinted in Hawkeye: Blindspot (2011).

  2. For more on the themes of redemption and rehabilitation, see the chapters titled “Forgivers Assemble?” by Daniel P. Malloy and “Cap’s Kooky Quartet: Is Rehabilitation Possible?” by Andrew Terjesen in this volume.

  3. Hawkeye, vol. 1, #4 (December 1983), reprinted in the hardcover collection Avengers: Hawkeye (2009).

  4. Many scholars now think the Tao Te Ching is more likely an anonymous collection of accumulated wisdom than the work of a single man, but for the sake of convenience we will refer to Lao Tzu when discussing it.

  5. Tao Te Ching, chapter 63. Unless noted otherwise, all translations of Taoist texts are by Thomas Cleary and can be found in The Taoist Classics, vol. 1 (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1994).

  6. This concept is also found in the writings of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus (55–135); see Book 4, chapter 4 of his Discourses.

  7. Solo Avengers #2 (January 1988), reprinted in Avengers: Solo Avengers Classic Vol. 1 (2012).

  8. Hawkeye & Mockingbird #3 (October 2010), reprinted in Hawkeye & Mockingbird: Ghosts (2011), which contains all six issues of the short-lived series. This advice comes in handy when Clint has to fight his brother and Baron Zemo after being blinded (Hawkeye: Blindspot #4, July 2011).

  9. Tao Te Ching, chapters 22 and 24.

  10. Tao Te Ching, chapter 2.

  11. Chuang Tzu, chapter 3, 66–67, in The Taoist Classics.

  12. Ibid.

  13. However, in Avengers, vol. 3, #79 (April 2004), reprinted in Avengers Vol. 4: Lionheart of Avalon (2004), Hawkeye tries to take on the entire Wrecking Crew, a trio of powerhouses who have given Thor a run for his money. After he is brutally beaten down, Clint confesses to the Wasp that he did it for her after seeing her ex-husband Hank Pym (who once beat her) manhandle her (Avengers, vol. 3, #82, July 2004, reprinted in Avengers Vol. 5: Once an Invader, 2004).

  14. Avengers, vol. 1, #63–64 (April–May 1969), reprinted in Essential Avengers Vol. 3 (2001).

  15. Avengers: Kree-Skrull War (2008), reprint
ing Avengers, vol. 1, #89–97 (June 1971–March 1972), also reprinted (in black and white) in Essential Avengers Vol. 4 (2005). For more on the Kree-Skrull War, see the chapter titled “Fighting the Good Fight: Military Ethics and the Kree-Skrull War” by Christopher Robichaud in this volume.

  16. Avengers, vol. 1, #99 (May 1972), reprinted in Essential Avengers Vol. 5 (2006).

  17. Avengers, vol. 1, #109 (March 1973), reprinted in Essential Avengers Vol. 5.

  18. Thunderbolts #43 (October 2000), reprinted in Avengers Assemble Vol. 3 (2006).

  19. Avengers, vol. 1, #20 (September 1965), reprinted in Essential Avengers Vol. 1. Some things never change: Clint even picks a fight with Steve Rogers’s successor, Bucky Barnes, over who “should have” taken over the mantle of Captain America after Rogers’s death (New Avengers: The Reunion #1, May 2009, reprinted in New Avengers: The Reunion, 2010). (Tony Stark offered Clint the title in Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America #3, July 2007, reprinted in Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America, 2008.)

  20. West Coast Avengers, vol. 1, #1 (September 1984), reprinted in Avengers: West Coast Avengers Assemble (2010).

  21. West Coast Avengers, vol. 1, #4 (December 1984), reprinted in Avengers: West Coast Avengers Assemble.

  22. Tao Te Ching, chapter 66.

  23. See the flashback scene in Hawkeye: Blindspot #2 (May 2011). For a textbook example of tough love from Cap when Clint is particularly down on himself, see Hawkeye & Mockingbird #6 (January 2011).

  24. Avengers, vol. 3, #75 (February 2004), reprinted in Avengers: The Search for She-Hulk (2010).

  25. Avengers, vol. 3, #6 (July 1998), reprinted in Avengers Assemble Vol. 1 (2004).

  26. Hawkeye: Blindspot #2. For more on Captain America’s modesty, see my chapter “Captain America and the Virtue of Modesty” in Superheroes: The Best of Philosophy and Pop Culture, ed. William Irwin (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011).

  27. Hawkeye, vol. 1, #4.

  28. Tao Te Ching, chapter 69. This is similar to the teachings of Sun Tzu in The Art of War, considered to be a Taoist classic in its own right.

  29. Avengers, vol. 3, #502 (November 2004), reprinted in Avengers Disassembled (2005).

  30. Tao Te Ching, chapter 7.

  31. Young Avengers #12 (August 2006), reprinted in Young Avengers: Family Matters (2007).

  32. For more on superhero mantles, see the chapter by Stephen Nelson titled “Superhero Identity: Case Studies in the Avengers” in this volume.

  33. Tao Te Ching, chapter 74.

  34. Hawkeye, vol. 3, #1–6 (December 2003–May 2004).

  35. House of M (2006).

  36. Clint finds the Scarlet Witch in New Avengers, vol. 1, #26 (January 2007), appears (unidentified) as Ronin in issue #27 (April 2007), and is shown (in flashback) assuming the Ronin identity in #30 (July 2007), all reprinted in New Avengers Vol. 6: Revolution (2007). He becomes Hawkeye once more in Enter the Heroic Age (July 2010), reprinted in Hawkeye & Mockingbird: Ghosts (2011).

  37. Chuang Tzu, chapter 2, 65, in The Taoist Classics. A similar argument was put forward by philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) to question our knowledge of reality; see his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Meditation 1. And it’s not too much of a stretch to extend this to the Skrull who impersonated Mockingbird for so many years! (For Mockingbird’s side of the story, see New Avengers: The Reunion.)

  38. Ibid., 64.

  39. Hawkeye & Mockingbird #1 (August 2010).

  40. Tao Te Ching, chapter 77.

  APPENDIX

  Why Are There Four Volumes of Avengers?

  Since there are so many Avengers titles, which seem to be relaunched or renumbered as often as Iron Man updates his armor, here is a “simple” guide to delving into the Avengers canon, covering the main ongoing titles (and by necessity leaving out many miniseries and one-shots).

  The first volume of Avengers started in September 1963 and lasted for over four hundred issues (and annuals) until September 1996. In 1984, the West Coast Avengers appeared in a self-titled miniseries (an obvious ploy to get Hawkeye out of Avengers Mansion), followed in 1985 by an ongoing series that lasted until 1994 (after changing its title to Avengers West Coast in 1989). In order to keep busy, Hawkeye also headlined the Solo Avengers title (which featured another Avenger in the backup story) starting in 1987 and lasting until 1991 (also changing its title to Avengers Spotlight in 1989).

  The first Avengers run ended when the Avengers were “Heroes Reborn,” thrown into a pocket dimension of distorted anatomy and even worse costume design. The second volume of Avengers mercifully lasted only thirteen issues (from November 1996 to November 1997). You will notice that this run is never cited in this book—for a reason. (’Nuff said.) The third volume of Avengers started in February 1998 when our heroes returned to the normal Marvel Universe with a near-classic lineup (and the Avengers spotlight now focused on the Scarlet Witch’s navel). In September 2004, the series was renumbered starting with issue #500 to reflect the original volume’s numbering (as if it had been followed throughout all the volumes). However, this was also the beginning of “Avengers Disassembled,” as the team and mansion were decimated by a very angry Scarlet Witch. (You connect the dots, my friend.)

  Then the fun started: after much soul-searching on the part of Iron Man and Captain America, the first volume of New Avengers launched in January 2005 (yes, the same month that the original Avengers disbanded forever!). It was followed by Young Avengers in April 2005, which lasted a year and told the story of a group of second-generation heroes (including another upstart archer). Then the Civil War happened in 2006, and the New Avengers reemerged afterward as an underground ragtag band of renegades fighting against superhero registration—and yes, Clint Barton was there. But the pro-registration forces, led by Iron Man, had their own team. The Mighty Avengers title started in May 2007, followed soon by Avengers: The Initiative in June 2007, detailing the training of young heroes (not including the Young Avengers, who continued on in a series of one-shots and miniseries).

  After the Skrulls’ Secret Invasion ended in January 2009, the lineups of the New and Mighty Avengers were shaken up (but the titles continued, without even renumbering them!). More important, Dark Avengers launched in March 2009, featuring evil doppelgängers for key Avengers like Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel, and led by none other than Norman Osborn. After Osborn’s Siege of Asgard in summer 2010, all the Avengers titles—New, Mighty, Dark, and Initiative—ended. In the new Heroic Age, not only was a second volume of New Avengers launched, but we also saw a fourth volume of Avengers as the classic title was revived for the first time in fifteen years. Add to this Secret Avengers (Steve Rogers’s black ops team, later headed by Hawkeye), Avengers Academy (the latest young-heroes-in-training title), and Avengers Assemble, which began in March 2012—not to mention the live-action movie, cunningly titled Avengers, and the animated TV show The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes—and the Avengers are truly Earth’s mightiest comics, television, and film franchise.

  Contributors

  Avengers Academy

  Adam Barkman has a PhD from the Free University of Amsterdam and is associate professor of philosophy at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario. He is the author of C. S. Lewis and Philosophy as a Way of Life, Through Common Things, and Above All Things, and is the coeditor of Manga and Philosophy and The Philosophy of Ang Lee. However, to his kids, Heather (Waspie-Turtle) and Tristan (Hulk-Puppy), he is simply known as Thor-Lion, and this is their song: “Avengers: Assemble! Always, we will fight as one, the battle boo-boo-boo . . .”

  Arno Bogaerts is currently finishing his studies in philosophy and ethics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium, where he has written several essays focusing on the superhero and its genre. He also writes for the Belgian comic book site Brainfreeze and will contribute a chapter to the upcoming Superman and Philosophy. Convinced that Belgian beer can easily beat the best mead Asgard has to offer, he and his buddies plan to challenge both Thor a
nd Tony Stark to a local drinking contest.